Worldwide, the third generation (3G) of mobile telecommunication networks is replaced by a fourth (4G) generation. The 3GPP Evolved Packet System (EPS) is a mobile network technology developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP, a name trademarked by one of the associations within the partnership, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute), to effectuate this transition to 4G communication networks in an effective manner, by using agreed upon standards and definitions. Within EPS, Long Term Evolution (LTE) mainly refers to the technology employed between a user (UE) and a base station (eNodeB), and Evolved Packet Core (EPC) technology mainly refers to the transport network employed to provide support to enhanced multimedia services on top of EPS. LTE systems have a higher spectral efficiency, a lower latency, and the EPS systems have a simpler architecture, than the 3G systems and provide a variable bandwidth capability. Between base stations and a public domain network in an EPS system, there are a group of central nodes (defined by the System Architecture Evolution—SAE working group and known as EPC) defined in 3GPP 23-401 and 3GPP 23-402, whose most recent versions as of January 2011 are also incorporated herewith by reference.
FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a conventional EPS system 100, in which a user 109 connected to a base station (eNodeB) 110 receives multimedia services from a Public Domain Network 140 via a serving gateway (SGW) 120 and a public domain network gateway (PDN GW) 130. A link 115 having a backhaul IP (and maybe also Ethernet or other type of) functionality, operates between the base station and the SGW 120. A link 125 having a service and mobile aware All-IP network functionality operates between the SGW 120 and the PDN GW 130. One significant enhancement brought by UMTS access which is the superset to LTE technology is the end-to-end QoS based on logical links named bearers identifying packet flows receiving common QoS treatment between a user (e.g., 109) and a PDN GW (e.g., 130). The bearers may be guaranteed bit rate (GBR) bearers or non-GBR bearers. There is also the default bearer which is basically a non-GBR bearer that comes with an AMBR (Aggregate Maximum Bit Rate) to limit the Bandwidth of all the non-GBR bearers. The QoS treatment of a bearer may be predefined as a QoS class identifier (QCI), the QCI being an index that differentiates based on whether the bearer is a GBR or non-GBR bearer and other artifacts such QoS parameters (delay, jitter, bandwidth etc) (GBR, QCI and ARP are the parameters that complement each other to specify the QoS).
In order to manage the Quality of Service (QoS) provided to all the users and to each user depending on his service profile, the central nodes perform a policy charging rules function (PCRF), which aggregates information to and from the network, operational support systems, and other sources (such as portals) in real time, supporting the creation of rules based on which automatically makes intelligent policy decisions for each subscriber active on the network. The PCRF enables the network to operate multiple services at different quality of service (QoS) levels. Complementary to the PCRF, central nodes such as S-GW (as per TS23.402) and PDN-GW (in both TS23.401 and TS23.402) also perform a policy charging enforcement function (PCEF) which is responsible with enforcing the policy rules generated by the PCRF. The PCRF and PCEF may be software components hosted by network devices or standalone nodes, located between base stations (e.g., eNodeB) serving user stations, and the public data network (PDN). The PCRF and PCEF allow a dynamic QoS management.
Certain limitations regarding QoS management have already occurred in the existing EPS systems. Specifically, the conventional EPS systems do not clearly specify how to perform dynamic QoS management taking into consideration the individual bearer load (e.g., predicted throughput/allocated throughput) and the global network congestion (e.g., the ratio of current throughput over the maximum possible throughput). For example, if the overall network is not overloaded and a bearer has reached its limit (i.e., fully uses its allocated throughput), the current EPS systems are not specified in the 3GPP technical specification on when to increase the bearer's QoS level (i.e., allocate resources for more throughput to the bearer), which increase would enhance the experience of the user served via the bearer. Conversely, when the overall network is overloaded, the current EPS systems are not specifically habilitated to (as it is desirable) selectively adjust the QoS levels (i.e., decrease the QoS level of some bearers, but not of all the bearers). It would be desirable when a network congestion is predicted or observed, to lower the QoS level of bearers serving user equipment (UEs) that signed (according to their profile) for lesser service, while maintaining the QoS level of bearers serving UEs that signed (according to their profile) for better service.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide devices, systems and methods capable of a dynamic bearer QoS management based on predicted global and individual throughputs and taking into consideration user profiles.